Process Controlled Manufacturing at Pratt & Whitney

The quality of parts and products is of increasing importance not just to customers but also reflects back to the business performance of the manufacturer. Consequently, great benefits are to be gained by learning and understanding the manufacturing processes used to produce parts. For this purpose on-machine probing is widely used in the aerospace and automotive industry.

Closed Loop Manufacturing techniques include machine tool self-checks, automated setups, tool measurement, in-process probing with process adjustment, on-machine final inspection, data collection and data analysis. All of these elements and more are utilized to collect data in a mostly automated fashion to subsequently correct and adjust undesired conditions that can affect part quality. Manufacturing process data can be used to detect problems prior to machining a part and it also becomes the basis for influencing product design regarding manufacturability and for preventive machine tool maintenance.